I Reincarnated into a Game Filled with Mods – Chapter 35

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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‘The Empress ordered someone to monitor me. I can’t understand the situation.’

That was the first thought that came to my mind.

‘Anyway, that guy is definitely an idiot.’

That was the next thought that came to mind.

I didn’t know what the Empress wanted from me or what she had ordered him to do, but at least I could easily be sure that it wasn’t to blatantly tell me he was going to monitor me like this.

Who on earth would say “I will watch over you from now on” and monitor someone? Unless the purpose itself was to discourage the target’s actions with such words.

However, judging from what this guy was saying, it didn’t seem like he had the purpose of discouraging my actions by saying such things. In other words, this fellow was sincerely declaring that he would monitor me.

‘It’s no different from the game.’

The knight commander of the Golden Dusk Knights was an NPC who was almost like a comic relief character in the game, with bragging and exaggeration being his daily routine. Moreover, his personality was also nasty.

Of course, unlike the lord of this city who had a similarly nasty personality and caused a lot of trouble for others, he was someone who lived in his own world of self-importance, so the case was slightly different.

Just as in creative works, when there are usually two rival groups, one is incorruptible or good and becomes the protagonist’s ally, while the other is corrupt or relatively evil and constantly interferes with the protagonist, it was the same with the two knighthoods of the Imperial Palace.

The Silver Dawn Knights could become complete allies and join as comrades depending on the story progression and route choice. On the other hand, there was no such thing for the Golden Dusk Knights.

‘And their skills are even worse.’

All the knight commanders of the Silver Dawn Knights were named bosses who even had their own OST for boss battles, and the general knights who were absorbed into the Golden Dusk Knights were mobs with the special title of “elite.”

In contrast, the knights of the Golden Dusk Knights were simply referred to as “Imperial Palace Knights.” Moreover, even the only knight commander in front of me was treated as a mid-boss, not a boss.

It was obvious what the developer wanted to say.

“Who are you going to monitor now?”

“Hey, cut the nonsense and explain quickly. I’m about to get really pissed off, you know? What are you doing to our newbie?”

Lizé’s eyes turned cold upon hearing that he would monitor me, and Claudia, who had approached from behind at some point, tightly grasped his shoulder. Claudia’s eyes were just as fierce as Lizé’s.

The golden knight retorted in annoyance without showing any signs of hesitation.

“I’ve been saying it from the beginning. It’s an order from Her Majesty the Empress. I’ve received an order to monitor the new knight who joined your Silver Dawn Knights for the next 2 weeks.”

“Newbie, did you do something wrong back then?”

“I can’t think of anything in particular?”

“Then why would Her Majesty the Empress…?”

“I don’t know either. That’s why I’m doing this right now.”

The three of us looked at each other and exchanged words in a puzzled voice.

It was true.

I greeted the Empress who arrived here as I did in the game, and since I couldn’t avoid answering when the Empress asked questions, I answered, and I blocked the attack that came in the middle because I would have died if I hadn’t blocked it.

There was nothing particularly noteworthy after that. In the first place, it was Aurora who stuck by the Empress’s side and took care of everything, I just followed behind with my mouth shut.

The Empress didn’t even bother to talk to me, who was obediently following behind.

‘Where did it go wrong?’

As this situation was a first for me, after the absurdity faded, a bit of worry began to creep into my mind. I thought I had definitely followed the main storyline of the game along the main branches.

As for the intermediate process, in the end, I joined the Silver Dawn Knights, in the end, I subjugated the Headless Armored Cavalier, in the end, I dealt with the lord using a demon, and in the end, I safely passed the meeting with the Empress.

The details were quite different from the game, but that couldn’t be helped since the personalities had also changed along with the appearances due to the mods.

But as a result, an incident occurred that I had never seen before.

The Empress sending the knight commander of the Golden Dusk Knights to monitor the player was something I had never heard of. I hadn’t even heard of it happening to someone else.

I briefly wondered if it was a hidden event in the game, but I quickly dismissed the idea myself.

Brightest Darkness 4 was a game that had already been thoroughly data mined by users, so if there was such a hidden route, it would have been thoroughly uncovered and even posted in the community with detailed strategies.

‘Wait. Even the personalities have changed?’

When my thoughts reached that point, I felt like I knew the cause of the current situation.

The gender and appearance of the NPCs had changed, and naturally, their personalities had also changed along with it. To the point where it would be faster to count the characters that hadn’t changed rather than the ones that had.

Therefore, their reactions to the player’s actions were bound to be different as well.

‘…Tsk.’

The thought that I had failed to realize this simple fact until now left a bitter taste in my mouth.

If the Empress’s personality had changed just like the other characters? If it wasn’t simply praising the player for defending against her attack and moving on, but a situation where she became interested in me?

‘I need to think about this.’

Perhaps I had been thinking completely wrong all this time. It seemed like I needed to seriously consider this matter.

“…”

There was a need, but there was no time.

‘Ah, it’s really annoying, seriously.’

I shuddered inwardly at the sound of the golden knight’s footsteps following me a few meters away even now.

Lizé, who had accompanied me to observe me while exterminating monsters, was a gentleman in comparison. No, I could even happily accept that level of gaze. After all, it was a busty beauty looking at me with delighted eyes.

But that fellow was different. After openly declaring that he would monitor me, he really watched me without fail for even a moment.

Not only when I was wandering around inside the castle, but also when I was eating in the dining hall or when I went out to exterminate monsters for leveling, I always saw a golden armor in the corner of my vision.

As a result, I couldn’t even properly raise my stats after coming back from killing monsters. I couldn’t allocate stats while that fellow was watching.

What was even more frustrating was the fact that it had only been two days of monitoring. If I was already driven to the brink of insanity in just two days, the thought of enduring this for 2 weeks made me feel dizzy.

Iris and Erica, who had returned from patrolling the city a few days ago, also made a dumbfounded expression upon hearing the whole story from us, but they also seemed to have no sharp solution to get rid of that fellow.

Although he was a pest with a sky-high nose and terribly strong pride, he was undeniably a knight commander who served Her Majesty the Empress in the Imperial Palace.

It meant that he was definitely not someone who would falsely invoke the Empress’s name. If the Empress had given an order to monitor me, what could we possibly do to stop it?

However, it seemed that not only me but also the other knight commanders found that fellow annoying, even if there was no way to deal with him.

“Hey, newbie. Why is he doing that?”

“I don’t know either. You can usually guess the thoughts of a smart person, but you can neither follow nor guess the thoughts of a fool.”

“That’s true. He definitely seems to have low intelligence.”

“I think he might have heard what you just said.”

“I’m saying it so he can hear it. I’m also uncomfortable to the point of dying right now.”

Lizé and I whispered to each other while crossing our wooden swords. That golden knight was meticulously writing even that down in his notebook. Seeing that, Lizé clicked her tongue in disgust.

I briefly checked what he was writing out of curiosity, and it was a notebook recording my actions.

When I asked why he was writing such things out of absurdity, he even wrote down the fact that I had asked why he was writing such things. Why is he writing that down like some kind of historian from the Joseon Dynasty?

‘I can’t think of anything because I’m so distracted.’

There was a mountain of things to worry about right away, but I couldn’t concentrate at all because that fellow was taking all my attention. Lizé and I sighed and resumed our stances.

“So, is this situation going to continue for the time being?”

“It seems like it will be. It’s a bit ambiguous since incidents don’t come with a notice, but for now, we don’t have any scheduled plans. Unless something happens somewhere else, we’ll probably have nothing to do, right?”

We exchanged conversations while swinging our wooden swords. The sound of wood clashing against each other resounded regularly in the training grounds.

In the end, it seemed that the story itself would progress after I reached level 20 and unlocked the runes. Although I couldn’t be sure about that now.

After deflecting all of Lizé’s three consecutive attacks, my body suddenly felt heavy at that point. I pulled my legs back and straightened my posture. The combat fatigue slowly decreased, and the sensation returned.

‘I need to level up quickly to get rid of the debuff.’

The thought of when I would reach level 20 made me sigh involuntarily. This was the problem.

Unlike the game where all the mobs in an area would respawn intact after taking a break at a base and going back, now I had to wait for a certain period of time no matter what.

After clearing all the nearby monsters and raising a level, the schedule would become empty while waiting for the respawn.

Little by little, although the place I was in was the world inside the game, I began to realize that it wasn’t really a game.

“Pathetic.”

‘…Huh?’

While I was tapping on a calculator in my mind, thinking that I could reach level 20 and unlock the runes after going around one or two more times, I heard a mocking voice from somewhere.

The source was, of course, the golden knight who had been monitoring me.

“Hey, what did you just say?”

Lizé reacted furiously and growled. The golden knight repeated without batting an eye.

“I said it’s pathetic. Even at a glance, I can tell the level of your sparring.”

“If you came to monitor the newbie, shut your mouth and do your job. The fact that someone like you is here is already annoying enough to drive me crazy, so why are you picking a fight? You want to go at it?”

“Do you think you can win if we go at it?”

“You littleㅡ Mmph!”

Before the atmosphere could get even worse, I covered Lizé’s mouth with my hand. Lizé protested with her eyes, asking why I was doing that, but I put more strength into my hand and smiled as pleasantly as possible.

“It can’t be helped since Knight Commander Lizé has to match my level. They are the only ones I can spar with right now. Since we both held back our strength, it’s only natural for you to think that way.”

“Even if she has to match your skills, this is too pitiful. Can you even survive fighting monsters like this?”

I had already cut off the heads of dozens of those monsters and would cut off thousands more in the future. I felt like asking what he was blabbering about without knowing his place, but I hid my true feelings and maintained my smile.

“I don’t think that’s something for you to say, Knight Commander.”

“What did you say?”

The golden knight got upset and asked back at my light provocation. He had a terribly low ignition point.

Despite being nothing special, he had an extremely strong pride, so the fact that a newbie who had just joined the knighthood said such a thing to him must have been an unbearable insult.

Lizé seemed to have guessed what would happen next after seeing my smile, and her struggling subsided.

“Isn’t that right? Anyone can give verbal advice. Seeing you rambling on without even personally getting involved, it seems like you lack confidence in your skills. If you really had the skills, you wouldn’t just say it with words, but directly show it.”

That was the decisive blow. The golden knight spat out the cliché line, “How dare you say that to me!” and walked to the other side of the training grounds to find a wooden sword, fuming.

I released my hand that was covering Lizé’s mouth. Lizé lightly touched her lips that had been in contact with my hand for a moment, then winked and told me not to beat him up too much and to do it moderately.

It was a smile filled with trust in me.

It was the first time I experienced the player having a match with that fellow here, but since his visit to the Silver Dawn Knights itself was a situation that didn’t exist in the game, it would be the same even if I beat him up moderately.

‘He was the one who picked a fight first.’

He was someone who had been getting on my nerves in the game, so should I think of it as taking revenge on him as well?

A pair of eyes quietly watched the scene in the training grounds without being noticed by anyone.

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